Not Risky: 68% of Americans Support Collins's Decision to Come Out

While the mainstream sports and news media lionized Jason Collins for coming out of the closet last week in a Sports Illustrated article and even falsely compared him to Jackie Robinson, a new poll shows that an overwhelming number of Americans support Collins’s announcement, indicating the coverage Collins received for taking such a “risk” may have been overblown.

The newly-released Washington Post-ABC poll found that “68 percent of Americans support Collins’ decision to come out, while only 23 percent are opposed.”

In addition, the poll found Collins’s decision received support among “majorities of women (69 percent), men (67 percent), seniors (58 percent), non-college graduates (63 percent) and those who identified themselves politically as independents (73 percent) and Republicans (52 percent).”

These numbers, and the praised already heaped on Collins, suggest Collins stands to benefit from having come out of the closet.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted May 1 to 5, and the poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.5 percentage points.